Hello everyone,
if someone had told me a few years back that I would be discussing philosophy on a video game forum, I would probably laugh... But here I am !
Here is the subject of the discussion : Are ethos as they are now, representative of the different behavior and belief a specie can have ?
The different subjects in my opinion are on point for the game.
Authoritarian - Egalitarian : The structure of the society
Xenophobe - Xenophile : The outlook the society has on beings different from it
Militarist - Pacifist : The society take on war
Materialist - Spiritualist : The society conception of the universe
Now, are those ethos representing everything ? No of course, like every model, it has limits. Does it have contradiction and could be improved ? In my opinion yes.
let's take a quick example : In Japan, people consider that robots have a soul. Are they spiritualist ? materialist (in the stellaris sense of course)?
My main qualm with the current system is it opposes things that should probably not be opposed.
For example authoritarian and egalitarian. (But even the devs were saying that they didn't quite like it).
Take the Roman empire for example. They took individualism so far that slavery became a pillar of their capitalist society. Were they authoritarian (slavery) or egalitarian (individualism) ?
Also, with the new system, we have an ascension tree that allow us to choose between biological/spiritual and material ascension. And yet the divide is only between 2 of them. It even forces the player to take them to really enjoy either robots or psionics in a natural way.
Now the question is : Must you have ethos in opposition ?
Japan is both materialist and spiritualist. Hippies are both ecologist and spiritualists. Biotech engineers are both materialist and ecologist.
Let's go back to the different subject ethos represent :
Authoritarian - Egalitarian : The structure of the society
Xenophobe - Xenophile : The outlook the society has on beings different from it
Militarist - Pacifist : The society take on war
Materialist - Spiritualist : The society conception of the universe
They should in my opinion answer the following questions :
Xenophile/phobe
-how much do you like different beings ?
-How much do you tolerate foreigners ?
-How much do you consider them your equals ?
I can like aliens, they make a nice decoration in my cave. Be isolationist and yet accept the aliens in my realm. But even if I consider aliens my equal, if I can put my citizen as slaves, I won't hesitate to do the same with aliens.
Authoritarian/equalitarian
-Liberty : how much people are free to do
-Equality : how much people have the same chance to do it
-Fraternity : how tight of a community you have
Liberty without equality is slavery for most, equality without liberty is communism (low production) and without fraternity you have a low cohesion
Militarist/pacifist
-how likely are you to go to war ?
-how strong will you hit ?
-What is your understanding of tactics ?
You can be a pacifist that will never aggress someone and yet have an army ready and if someone goes overbound you will burn his worlds
Materialist/spiritualist
-How proficient are you in biology ?
-How proficient are you in artificial constructs ?
-How proficient are you in spirituality ?
there are three path, you can walk on the three and discover links between the three.
I think with that it would cover most of the aspects of the different topics and increase the depth of the game, without increasing it's complexity too much.
What are your thoughts on ethos ?
if someone had told me a few years back that I would be discussing philosophy on a video game forum, I would probably laugh... But here I am !
Here is the subject of the discussion : Are ethos as they are now, representative of the different behavior and belief a specie can have ?
The different subjects in my opinion are on point for the game.
Authoritarian - Egalitarian : The structure of the society
Xenophobe - Xenophile : The outlook the society has on beings different from it
Militarist - Pacifist : The society take on war
Materialist - Spiritualist : The society conception of the universe
Now, are those ethos representing everything ? No of course, like every model, it has limits. Does it have contradiction and could be improved ? In my opinion yes.
let's take a quick example : In Japan, people consider that robots have a soul. Are they spiritualist ? materialist (in the stellaris sense of course)?
My main qualm with the current system is it opposes things that should probably not be opposed.
For example authoritarian and egalitarian. (But even the devs were saying that they didn't quite like it).
Take the Roman empire for example. They took individualism so far that slavery became a pillar of their capitalist society. Were they authoritarian (slavery) or egalitarian (individualism) ?
Also, with the new system, we have an ascension tree that allow us to choose between biological/spiritual and material ascension. And yet the divide is only between 2 of them. It even forces the player to take them to really enjoy either robots or psionics in a natural way.
Now the question is : Must you have ethos in opposition ?
Japan is both materialist and spiritualist. Hippies are both ecologist and spiritualists. Biotech engineers are both materialist and ecologist.
Let's go back to the different subject ethos represent :
Authoritarian - Egalitarian : The structure of the society
Xenophobe - Xenophile : The outlook the society has on beings different from it
Militarist - Pacifist : The society take on war
Materialist - Spiritualist : The society conception of the universe
They should in my opinion answer the following questions :
Xenophile/phobe
-how much do you like different beings ?
-How much do you tolerate foreigners ?
-How much do you consider them your equals ?
I can like aliens, they make a nice decoration in my cave. Be isolationist and yet accept the aliens in my realm. But even if I consider aliens my equal, if I can put my citizen as slaves, I won't hesitate to do the same with aliens.
Authoritarian/equalitarian
-Liberty : how much people are free to do
-Equality : how much people have the same chance to do it
-Fraternity : how tight of a community you have
Liberty without equality is slavery for most, equality without liberty is communism (low production) and without fraternity you have a low cohesion
Militarist/pacifist
-how likely are you to go to war ?
-how strong will you hit ?
-What is your understanding of tactics ?
You can be a pacifist that will never aggress someone and yet have an army ready and if someone goes overbound you will burn his worlds
Materialist/spiritualist
-How proficient are you in biology ?
-How proficient are you in artificial constructs ?
-How proficient are you in spirituality ?
there are three path, you can walk on the three and discover links between the three.
I think with that it would cover most of the aspects of the different topics and increase the depth of the game, without increasing it's complexity too much.
What are your thoughts on ethos ?